His lips curve. “Since the FBI told me to, I just might.”
I’m smiling as I exit the vehicle, but there is a heaviness to my mood. We joke about shooting people when we both know that at this point, it’s not really a joke at all.
The honeymoon is so fucking over.
Chapter Twenty-Three
By the time I’m at the door of the diner, Jay is by my side. “Hang back,” I indicate, and once we’re inside, Detective Rollins is already flagging me from a booth.
I leave Jay at the door, and Donna, the regular waitress in this joint, scowls at me. She always scowls at me, but her obvious dislike for me doesn’t hold her back. She’s a ballsy bitch who is always shoving things at me I don’t want pumpkin spice lattes during my holiday seasons visits.
Rollins stands when I approach, all gentlemanly and looking sharp in a blue suit. He’s a decent enough looking guy but his prickly pear attitude probably irritates a lot of women.
“All spiffed up for the press, I see,” I comment as we slide into the booth across from each other.
“Looking sharp helps people feel like I have control.”
“Gotta keep up the façade, right?”
Now he’s scowling at me. “I have control, Special Agent.”
“And how many suspects?”
That scowl of his deepens. “None, but not from a lack of effort and strategy.”
Donna sets a coffee with whipped cream and pink sprinkles on top next to me. My brows furrow. “What is this?”
“A Valentine’s kiss. You seem extra bitchy today, so I thought it would help sweeten you up.”
“First, it’s not even February, so this shit is ridiculous. And second, how do you know I’m extra bitchy today? This is the first we’ve spoken.”
“And yet, you’ve proven my point,” she replies. “Try it. It’s good.” She walks away.
Detective Rollins laughs. “Is that how I’m supposed to handle you?”
“By giving me whipped cream and coffee? Yes. Talking shit, well it depends on how much I want to pull my gun that day. Let’s talk about the case.”
“We have a serial killer,” he says, sipping his black coffee. “You don’t have to tell me. I know.”
“You knew before you ever sent me those files. You just didn’t want me involved.”
“We’ve had this conversation already. Been there, done that. We both know why I didn’t call you.”
I scoop whipped cream into my mouth and then sip the coffee, which turns out to be sweet and chocolatey. It’s actually very good, good enough to break my three-cup limit. “How far are you into the interviews? I didn’t see any notes that indicate anything beyond the crime scene data, which didn’t tell me much. No fingerprints. No hair. No fibers. Nothing. The crime scenes were almost a little too clean.”
“As far as interviews go, I’ll send you the notes, but nothing in them helped the case much or we’d have a solid lead, which we do not. And yes, I had the same thought on how clean the crime scenes read. It’s almost as if the killer knows law enforcement.”
“I assume you’ve figured out the victims all live close to campus?”
His eyes register surprise. “We have. I’m surprised you had time to figure that out.”
In other words, he left a lot out of his files that he could have given me. “Have you looked at the parents of the victims and any connection they share?”
“We’ve interviewed the parents in the prior case, but we were focused on the actual victims. Obviously now that the cases appear to be linked, everyone needs to be revisited. You think the parents are the trigger in some way?”
“They all have money, except for the female victim, who seems to me to be at the wrong place with the wrong guy. I think he was the target. Money seems to be the root of the murders. My tech guy is working on the case. He’s looking for connections in every direction. Talk to me about Jack Cox.”
“I barely know the kid outside him being a pain in my ass over this horror movie killer copycat thing.”
“He was right about that and he’s really not much of a kid.”
“He acts like one, with all that Dungeons and Dragons shit.”
“He called me. By his own admission, he’s obsessed with murder. He’s a Cox, and that’s a wealthy family name, which brings us back to money, again.”
“I assume your team is looking into him?”
“Yes, we are. I just wanted to get your take on him.”
“A little too obsessed with this case,” he agrees. “But, he’s a wannabe detective, and that could be said about all of us on certain cases at some point in time.”
“Do you know his status in his family?”
“I know nothing about him, other than he loves freaking horror movies, and knows how to nag better than my mother and my ex. But can we talk about the strategy to deal with all the bullshit bureaucracy?” He eyes his watch. “I don’t have long before the first meeting. What’s the deal with you and your father, the future governor?”